Grey Wolves (35 page)

After a sprint, Luc glanced out on to the dockside and was surprised to find nobody nearby, but his relief didn’t last. The coal yard on the opposite side of the docks was ablaze with light, and the searchlight that had picked him out in the scaffold soon traced him to the ground.

Bullets pinged across from the opposite side of the dock, as well as from some unseen position behind him. It would only be a matter of seconds before he got shot so he started a run, took a huge breath and launched himself over the dockside into the moonlit water.

The water was salty and contaminated with effluent flushed out from one of the U-boat pens. His eyes burned as the weight of the pack dragged him down. He kept sinking until he’d fought himself free of the pack. But he was still heavy and he abandoned his machine gun as he kicked up powerfully.

Random bullets punched the water as he gulped two huge breaths and dived down, trying to swim as far and as fast as he could underwater. After another dash he surfaced under the floating pontoon on the western side of the dock. His proximity to the high dock wall made it impossible for the Germans on this side to pick him out with their searchlight or shoot at him, but they’d spot him soon enough if he didn’t find somewhere to go.

Henderson worked the handle on one side of the handcart, while Joel and Rosie shared the other. It was a job getting it moving, but once they were underway it was exhilarating and exhausting, bobbing up and down with the wind in their hair and the wheels clattering on the iron rails.

The railway lines that led from the docks to the freight yard where they’d attacked the trains a few weeks earlier were only guarded by occasional foot patrols. They left the Lorient navy base unhindered and clattered on through the centre of town, passing the crummy warehouses and tenement blocks that backed on to the railway line.

They were keen to put distance between themselves and the navy base, but the lines were designed for slow-moving cargo trains and the handcart almost threw Henderson off as they juddered over an uneven join between two rails.

After this shock they kept the speed down to running pace, which also had the advantage of being quieter. There were bridges across the railway lines in central Lorient, but as they reached the outskirts they faced several ungated level crossings.

It was after curfew, so the only people on the streets were Germans and workers with special passes. As they approached one crossing they heard, but couldn’t see, a speeding motorbike. Henderson had previously tried the brake lever when they’d picked up momentum on a slope, but it was simply a wooden lever with a brake shoe at the end that rubbed against the wheels. It caused a great deal of noise and sparks, but had little effect in terms of altering the cart’s speed.

There was a collective gasp as the German motorbike blasted its horn and slammed on brakes. Joel and Rosie saw terror in the rider’s eyes as he swerved around the back of the cart, missing it by less than a metre. He came off the bike, tumbling across the opposite track, and hit a tangle of bushes with enough force to uproot them.

The next and final crossing was less distressing. The track beyond it ran alongside the Lorient’s northernmost entry point. This checkpoint had been beefed up following the raid, and they sped up as they passed within five metres of heavily armed guards and a roadblock comprising four parked Kübelwagens and a sign saying
All Checkpoints Closed
.

The trio pumped the handcar another few hundred metres.

‘I reckon that’s enough,’ Henderson said, as he let the handle go.

They’d intended to cruise to a stop about a kilometre beyond the edge of the city, but there was a train stalled on the opposite track half a kilometre ahead. It had been kept from completing its journey because of the raid, and while it was hard to see in the dark, it looked enough like one of the heavily guarded trains that brought men and equipment from Germany for Henderson to yank the brake and pull with all his strength.

The lever shuddered violently, shaking his whole body and sending a sharp driving pain up both arms. As they slowed to jogging pace they were passing a level patch covered with gravel and weeds. Joel jumped off first and landed with a squelch from his muddy clothes, Rosie stifled a yell as her elbow hit a rock, while Henderson landed hard and needed a hand up because his arms were numb after fighting the brake.

As the cart trundled on, they scrambled up an embankment and emerged on to a stretch of country road. Henderson recognised it from the night when they’d blown up the trains.

‘We’re roughly three kilometres from the cliff at Lamor Plage,’ he said. ‘Be ready to shoot first and ask questions later: we’ve got no papers and the Krauts are on high alert.’

*

Luc was a powerful swimmer. The searchlights swept across the water as he swam out of the dock. After a brief tangle with a torpedo net, he squatted on a muddy embankment and prepared himself for a long swim across the river mouth.

Water and driftwood lapped against his legs as he stripped down. He’d ditched his machine gun, backpack and grenades already, now he removed his thick outer jacket and dumped the spare ammunition from his pockets. He knew he’d swim better without his heavy boots, but didn’t fancy the idea of walking barefoot on the other side.

After pulling the boots off, he tied them together by the laces and knotted them around his waist. Besides his boots, trousers and T-shirt the only equipment he had left was his hunting-knife, watch, silenced pistol and compass.

‘Did you hear that?’ a German asked, as he peered over the end of the dock.

By the time he’d looked down, Luc had slid off the embankment and plunged underwater.

Lorient and the Keroman dock were on a peninsula with rivers feeding into the ocean on either side. Luc now had to swim five hundred metres to reach the opposite shore. The distance would be no problem for him in a pool, but the water was bitterly cold and the tide pushed him downstream.

As he swam, he could hear the engines of patrol boats, and caught the odd glimpse of searchlight beams, but his bobbing head was a tiny object in a huge bay and his real battle was with himself.

After ten minutes he was halfway across and felt fine, but at two-thirds distance he hit the pain barrier. Every kick strained his thighs and the shoulder he’d injured earlier was screaming for mercy. The pain was so bad that he was tempted to scream for help or ball up and let his body sink.

Somehow he made it to the far embankment, but he found himself several metres below a flood defence wall. As he swam along the wall searching for a way up he started going cross-eyed and sensed that he was close to blacking out.

The wash from a fast-moving patrol boat slammed him against the wall and when he came to he was underwater with no strength in his arms or legs. It almost didn’t seem worth making the effort to surface, but when he broke back into the moonlight and took a huge yawning breath he saw a set of stone steps reflecting the moonlight.

Half convinced that his mind was playing tricks, Luc swam the hardest ten metres of his life and only believed they were real when he’d propped himself on to the first stone step. His heart pounded at more than two hundred beats per minute and he gulped air as he shivered, and clutched his sides fighting a stitch.

When he’d caught some breath he moved shakily up a couple more steps, clearing the lapping water. He untied the boots around his waist and tipped out the water before pulling them back over his feet. Whatever had been in the water around the dock was making his skin itch like crazy and his eyes were on fire as he staggered up the steps.

He kept low as he reached the landing at the top and peered out on to a tatty wooden promenade spattered with gull droppings. At the limit of his blurred vision a German pill-box was built above the wall.

The Germans were short of manpower and the chances of it being occupied were only about one in three, but he still kept low as he raced across the promenade, vaulted a wall and collapsed in a shuddering heap.

It was after curfew so being outdoors was suspicious and being outdoors in soggy British commando gear doubly so. As he crept up the alleyway and peered out he recognised the outline of a plain little church. He didn’t know the place well, but he was less than a kilometre from Kerneval and he’d been here three weeks earlier, stashing some of the equipment that
Madeline II
delivered in the home of a friendly blacksmith.

He thought about visiting the blacksmith, but he couldn’t remember the exact street. He checked his watch and saw that it was twenty to eleven. The extraction point was less than two kilometres from here. He’d make it if he moved quickly and didn’t encounter any Germans, but with the patrols likely to be on high alert and his body weakened after the swim it would be a close thing.

*

All the beaches were well defended, so Henderson had chosen a cliff for their extraction point. He arrived with fifteen minutes to spare and located a marine signalling lamp and some supplies that Olivier and Michel had hidden under bushes that afternoon.

They all drank copious amounts of water from a canteen and Joel washed the worst of the mud from his hands and face.

‘There’s a German pill-box fifty metres that way, and another eighty-five metres that way,’ Henderson whispered. ‘So keep your heads down and your guns ready.’

At three minutes to eleven, Henderson moved up to the cliff’s edge. He flashed the signalling light for an instant as Rosie looked down fifteen metres of sheer cliff face into a choppy sea.

‘How do we know it’s deep enough?’ she asked nervously.

‘Trust me,’ Henderson said. ‘Put your hands on your shoulders, jump two-footed. You’ll be fine.’

Henderson flashed the light again, and this time he got a little flash back, from an open motorboat about a hundred metres from the cliff.

‘Get the life jackets out of the bush,’ Henderson said. ‘Fetch mine over, and tell Joel to start strapping his on. Best if you lose some of the heavier clothes too.’

As Rosie turned around, she bumped into Joel coming the other way.

He sounded anxious. ‘Someone’s riding a bike up the path.’

‘OK,’ Henderson said, as he processed the new information. ‘I’ve got to stay here with the signal light. Put your life vests on so that you’re ready to jump if needs be, then take flanking positions covering my back and be ready to shoot if you don’t see a signal. Use your silenced weapons if you possibly can.’

Rosie crawled rapidly through the long cliff top grass behind Joel with her machine gun and pistol ready. Joel pulled on a life jacket, and threw one across to Henderson.

Henderson looked down and saw a double flash from the small motorboat at the base of the cliff.

‘They’re in position,’ he said. ‘Time to go.’

Joel’s eyes were fixed on the meandering path. The cycle was a women’s model with a basket on the front and it wavered as if it was being pedalled by an OAP. He aimed the gun sight at the rider’s chest.

‘I think it’s Luc,’ Rosie said.

Moments later a hand came off the handlebar and punched the air three times.

‘It’s Luc,’ Rosie told Henderson.

‘Alone?’

‘No sign of Antoine,’ she confirmed.

Joel ran twenty metres downhill to meet Luc as he clambered off the bike. He was pouring sweat and he could hardly stand up straight.

‘You look beat,’ Joel said.

‘I’m completely buggered,’ Luc said, as Joel took his arm to help him stay upright. ‘I’ve already thrown up twice.’

‘Where’s Antoine?’

‘Dead,’ Luc said.

Joel grabbed the water and handed it to Luc as Rosie helped him into a life jacket.

‘We’re ready to jump,’ Henderson said, as he gave three flashes to the boat below.

‘Luc’s exhausted,’ Rosie said.

Henderson threw the signalling lamp aside and stood up to inspect Luc. He put a hand on the boy’s forehead.

‘You’re close to passing out,’ Henderson said, as he saw Luc’s eyes drifting out of focus. ‘We’ll jump together, holding hands, OK?’

‘Right,’ Luc agreed.

Rosie thought she saw something move in the long grass about thirty metres away. As she backed up from the bushes for a better look she saw a German helmet bob up above the tall grass.

‘Duck,’ she shouted.

They all hit the ground as a rifle-shot cracked the air above their heads. Joel rolled over and started blasting through the bushes with his Sten gun, as two more soldiers revealed themselves. The shots were wild, but they were enough to send the Germans diving for cover.

‘Rosie, Joel, jump now,’ Henderson ordered.

Henderson covered them with his pistol as they crawled to the cliff edge. They had to stand to jump, but the threat of being shot in the back meant that they didn’t fanny around on the edge worrying about the drop.

As Rosie and Joel hit the water, Henderson spotted one of the Germans making a charge. He shot with the pistol, knocking the man down, but at the same time a shot came at Henderson from the opposite direction. The plan had been to jump individually so that the crew inside the small motor launch could focus on picking one person at a time from the water, but there was now more chance of getting shot on the cliff top than of drowning in the sea.

Henderson quickly lobbed a couple of grenades in opposite directions, then grabbed Luc’s hand.

‘Ready?’

A bullet whizzed overhead as they stood up and ran for the cliff’s edge.

The first grenade exploded as their feet left the ground. Luc gripped Henderson’s hand so tightly that it hurt as the water came towards them. They speared the sea feet first, as a half-metre wave knocked them back towards the cliff.

Henderson felt his boot touch the bottom. As he surfaced he grasped at a life preserver attached to a rope. Two tough New Zealanders hauled the rope in and within moments they were alongside the open motor launch.

‘Take him first, he’s weak,’ Henderson shouted.

As the sailors took care of Luc, Joel and Rosie grabbed Henderson’s life jacket and helped him aboard.